


i know you shine (even on a rainy day)

by shineyma



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-17 04:49:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15453705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: Grant returns home to find Jemma sick. [A repost of a super old fic that never made the move from tumblr to AO3.]





	i know you shine (even on a rainy day)

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm in the middle of revamping my fic masterlist on tumblr and, in the process of doing so, stumbled across this super old drabble (from November 2014!). I gave it a reread and actually super loved it, which is very rare, especially for my old stuff, so I decided to reblog it...and tumblr, as it so often does, glitched and caused problems.
> 
> Thus, here it is on AO3 for convenient reading....and commenting. If you're into that. *cough*
> 
> Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review! (And forgive any errors. Like I said...it's from 2014.) <3

Grant always calls Jemma as soon as he gets back to the Hub.

She doesn’t always answer. In fact, she hardly ever does. She gets way too involved in her work, and something as small as her phone vibrating isn’t usually enough to draw her attention away from the mysteries of life—or whatever she might be investigating that particular day.

He doesn’t mind. Generally speaking, after his missions, even hearing her brief, cheery voicemail greeting is enough to make him feel lighter. He’ll leave her a message—just a little heads-up that he’s back on base and on his way to debrief—and usually, by the time he’s done debriefing, she’s listened to it and is waiting for him.

So he’s more than a little surprised when, upon returning from Valjevo and giving her a call, the call is answered. He’s even more surprised that the person who answers is Fitz.

“Are you back?” he demands.

“Uh, yeah,” Grant answers, coming to a stop halfway across the hangar. “Is everything okay?”

Trip and Bobbi both pause and turn to look at him.

“No, it isn’t,” Fitz snaps. “You need to come get your wife.”

His tone is abrasive, but not particularly urgent. Grant categorizes it as annoyed, not frightened, and relaxes. He nods to Trip and Bobbi, and falls back into step with them, heading for the door.

“Why?” he asks.

“She’s sick,” Fits says. “And she is  _contaminating_  our lab.”

He hears Jemma’s muffled protest in the background and can’t hold back a smile. For all that she always scolds  _him_  for being a horrible patient, she’s really just as bad. Her general response to illness is denial, and he’s more than once had to physically remove her from the lab to make her rest.

If Fitz’s tone is any indication, he’s probably going to have to do the same today.

“Okay,” he says. “We’ve got a debriefing, but I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Hurry, would you?” Fitz pleads. “And bring a cleaning crew when you come, because— _Simmons!_ ”

There’s a brief scuffle, and Grant hears Jemma hissing, “I am  _not_  sick, Leopold Fitz; don’t bother Grant with your—”

“Yes, you are, and if you would stop being so  _bloody stubborn_  for  _two seconds_ —”

The call cuts off, and Grant doesn’t bother to call back. Shaking his head, he slips his phone in his pocket and readjusts his grip on his duffle bag.

“Everything okay?” Bobbi asks.

“Yeah,” he says. “Jemma’s sick.”

She and Trip both wince. They’ve never  _seen_  Jemma while she’s sick, but they’ve certainly heard enough from him about it. And, of course, they were present two years ago, when he returned to base from a mission to be told that Jemma had been hospitalized after fainting in the middle of an experiment.

“Good luck, man,” Trip says, clapping him on the shoulder. “You’re gonna need it.”

“Tell me about it,” he mutters. He checks his watch. “I just hope the debrief doesn’t take too long. Sounded like Fitz was contemplating homicide.”

Trip and Bobbi exchange looks.

“You go ahead,” Trip offers. “We’ve got this.”

He pauses and looks between them. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” Bobbi shrugs. She gives him a little smirk. “It’s not like you really  _did_ anything on this one, anyway.”

“Saved your ass,” he counters, but he’s already turning to head for the SciOps corridor.

“I had him and you know it,” she disagrees. “You were just showing off.”

Maybe a little.

“You have to admit,” he says. “It was a great shot.”

“It was  _ridiculous_ ,” Trip agrees. “Just totally unnecessary.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Bobbi says. “Tell Jem to feel better, and that my offer’s still open.”

“So’s mine,” Trip nods. “And if she needs anyone to nurse her back to health…”

If his partners were anyone else, he would’ve shot them both  _years_  ago for how often they hit on Jemma. But it’s Trip and Bobbi, so all he does is flip them off over his shoulder as he walks away. He generously ignores the laughter that follows him down the hall.

He can hear Jemma and Fitz arguing from three rooms away, but any amusement he gets from it disappears as soon as he lays eye on her.

She looks terrible—pale and shaky, and he’s pretty sure that if she wasn’t hanging on to the lab table the way she is, she wouldn’t be able to stand. Her voice, even raised at Fitz, is hoarse, and she has to break off in the middle of a sentence for a coughing fit.

“Yeah,” he says, dryly, once it’s over. “You’re not sick at all.”

“Grant!” she says, spinning to face him. She wavers a little, and he drops his bag by the door and crosses the room quickly to steady her. “You’re here! Have you…” She darts a glance at the clock. “Have you debriefed already?”

“Trip and Bobbi are taking care of it,” he says. “I’ll have to go in later, but they can handle the initial reports.”

“You shouldn’t have left them with it,” she frowns. “I’m fine.”

Fitz scoffs. “You are  _not_.” He eyes the table she’s been leaning against with clear disgust. “We’ll have to have the whole lab sanitized.”

“Fitz,” she starts, turning towards him, but Grant stops her.

“Nope,” he says. “Come on. You’re done for the day.”

“It’s barely nine,” she protests, but he’s already grabbing her purse from the hook on the wall. “Grant! I am  _not_  sick, I just—”

She breaks off, coughing, and he rubs her back with his free hand as she clings to him for balance. She definitely has a fever; when the coughing fit passes and she leans against him, he can feel the heat in her skin.

“You were saying?” he asks. He brushes the back of his hand against her cheek, just to double check, and yeah. Fever.

“Perhaps I have a slight cold,” she amends. “But it’s hardly reason to—”

“Jemma,” he interrupts. “You can walk with me back to our quarters or I can carry you. Either way, I’m not leaving without you.”

She frowns at him. “You’re a bully.”

“Yep,” he agrees easily. “So? What’s it going to be?”

She frowns at him for a moment longer but, when he just meets her stare steadily, eventually caves.

“Fine,” she sighs. “I suppose I  _could_  do with a bit of rest.”

He considers taking her to Medical instead of their quarters, but decides it’s probably not worth the fight. If she gets worse, or isn’t better soon, he’ll drag her in, but this looks like bronchitis to him, and he knows that all the doctors will do is proscribe rest, fluids, and possibly a humidifier. It seems pointless to let her waste her remaining energy fighting him about going to Medical when he already knows exactly what they’re going to say.

So he leads her to their apartment. By the time they reach the part of the Hub dedicated to living quarters, she’s wavering, and he’s starting to wonder if he’ll have to carry her after all.

“Don’t even think about it,” she warns, apparently reading his thoughts on his face. “I am perfectly capable of walking.”

“Convince me,” he suggests.

She manages to keep her feet the rest of the way, but she’s really not looking good. She’s leaning on him pretty heavily by the time he’s unlocking their front door, breathless and obviously dizzy. He gets the door open and helps her inside, settling her on the couch for the moment as he goes back to get his duffle bag, which he set down to unlock the door. Then he closes and locks the door, drops Jemma’s purse on the table in the entry hall, and turns to look at her.

She’s in the process of stretching out on the couch, her shoes already abandoned on the floor, and he sighs. He decides to leave her be for the moment; at least she’s lying down. He sets some water to boil—because tea will make her feel better—and busies himself with unpacking while it does. Well, unpacking and repacking. The duffle bag is his go-bag, which always stays packed. But he trades out the dirty clothes in it for clean ones, adds another two spare mags, and restocks the first aid kit.

By the time he finishes that, the water is boiling, and he tosses his bag in the closet and heads for the kitchen. Jemma, he notes as he passes, isn’t quite asleep, but she’s definitely close. She’s obviously finding it harder to fight, now that she’s off her feet.

Good. She needs her rest.

She has another coughing fit as he’s finishing making her tea, and he winces in sympathy. That sounds seriously painful. Well, the tea should help—it’s the lemon stuff she always drinks when she’s not feeling well, and he put a little honey in to soothe her throat.

(He has to take a moment to absorb the strange dichotomy that is his life: less than twelve hours ago, he killed three people. Now he’s making tea for his wife. It’s a bizarre contrast.)

The fit lasts for a while, and he frowns. That’s definitely not a first-day cough. He wonders how long she’s been sick. This most recent op was a no-contact mission, so he’s been out of touch for a few weeks, and there’s no way of telling how long after he left she came down with this. He makes a mental note to ask Fitz later, then returns to the living room with her tea.

She’s sitting up now, leaning against the arm of the couch, and she looks completely miserable.

“Here,” he says, and hands her the mug. “Drink this. It’ll help.”

“Thank you,” she croaks.

He winces again; that sounds painful, too. Jemma frowns up at him.

“I didn’t even ask,” she says, apologetic. “Are you all right? How did your mission go?”

“I’m fine,” he says. “Wasn’t even on the front lines this time.” He takes a seat on the edge of the coffee table and taps the mug she’s cradling. “Drink.”

He has to prompt her more than a few times—swallowing is apparently painful; unsurprising, considering how hard she’s been coughing—but she eventually starts to drink her tea. It obviously does help at least a bit; once she gets started, she finishes it quickly enough. It eases some of the lines around her eyes, too.

“There,” he says, taking the mug from her. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

She hums a little vaguely, slumping to rest her head on the armrest of the couch.

“Hey,” he says. “We’ve got a perfectly nice bed in the next room, you know.”

“No, this is lovely,” she mumbles into the upholstery. “I’ll stay here.”

He sighs and sets the mug aside, then stands. Jemma barely twitches as he scoops her off the couch; she just turns her face into his shoulder and makes a contented little noise. It’s no trouble at all to carry her to their bedroom—he’s carried  _guns_ heavier than her—and within moments, he’s lowering her to the bed.

He has a little more trouble with that, as she clings to his neck, but he manages to detach her and get her tucked in.

“Nooo,” she moans quietly as he steps back, reaching out to snag his hand. “Stay.”

“I’ll be back in a second,” he promises. He gently pulls away from her and heads for the bathroom.

He’s honestly pretty exhausted, himself. Serbia’s not that far ahead of the Hub, but he’s been awake for more than two days at this point. He lost the coin toss and ended up being the one to pilot the transport, so he didn’t even get a nap on the way home the way Trip and Bobbi did.

Still, he wants a shower before he sleeps. The shower in their safehouse in Valjevo was pathetic, and he hasn’t felt properly clean since he left the Hub three weeks ago.

Despite that, he doesn’t linger in the (amazing, warm, more-than-a-trickle) shower. He’s in and out in less than ten minutes. He does hesitate as he’s drying off, though, considering his reflection. He really could use a shave—he’s way past the five o’clock shadow stage, at this point—but he decides it can wait.

When he returns to the bedroom, Jemma is barely awake. She watches, frowning, as he pulls on a pair of pajama bottoms, and gestures vaguely at his torso without lifting her head from her pillow.

“You said you weren’t hurt,” she accuses hoarsely.

“Save your voice,” he advises. “That sounds painful.”

“Grant.”

“It’s just some bruising,” he says. He tugs the blankets back and slides into bed.

Jemma wastes no time in snuggling against him, and he wraps one arm around her as he pulls the covers back up with the other. It’s a little warm under them for his taste, but he can feel Jemma shivering against him, despite the heat she’s giving off.

He pulls her a little closer, and she tucks her face against his neck as she tangles her legs with his. Something in his chest loosens. He’s sorry that she’s sick—hates to see her so clearly miserable—but he can’t say he’s sad to have an excuse to pull her away from her work so early in the day.

He missed her while he was gone. He always does. He loves his job and he’s damn good at it, but being separated from Jemma for weeks at a time never gets any easier.

“I love you,” she mumbles against his skin. “I’m glad you’re back.”

“Me, too,” he says. He presses a kiss to her hair and rubs her back as she curls even closer. It’s a pretty clear sign of just how bad she’s feeling; Jemma’s always fairly physically affectionate, but when she’s sick she gets downright clingy.

He doesn’t mind. Actually, he kind of loves it.

Jemma’s breathing evens out within moments, but he stays awake for a while longer, just enjoying the feeling of having her next to him again.


End file.
